AN: Ship is Luke/Jenny. M rating is for violence (including animals eating other animals)/threat/injury description. Story is set some time after JE, and pre-TWoSJS, ignoring future canon.

This story will be quite long. I have the first 28 chapters written, which I estimate to be just over a quarter of the plot. I will be posting every couple of weeks-sorry, I know it probably feels like a long time between, but it allows time for any hiccups in writing. If I were to post all the pre-written chapters in quick succession, there would be a gap every time I got writer's block, or distracted by real life or another fandom.

This fic is not beta'd. I would love it to be beta'd but it is very difficult finding a beta-reader who is able to commit to such a big project. (If anyone is, or knows someone available, please let me know.) So I'm hoping any inconsistencies can be pointed out to me and corrected while I'm still in the writing stage. Apologies in advance for any such errors. It's a tricky fic to get right.

The Honey in the Trap

By Alexannah

Chapter One: Dream Previews

It was still very early, but Luke knew he wasn't going to get back to sleep. He'd tossed and turned for a while, knowing it wouldn't pay to be tired today, but eventually slid out of bed. His bags were all packed ready for the school skiing trip, but his excitement had faded along with his ability to sleep.

He crept downstairs, planning to watch the television until his mother woke up. But he obviously disturbed her somehow, as she appeared in the hallway a few minutes later. "Luke, what are you doing up at this hour?"

Sarah Jane got a shrug in response. She sighed. "Do you want a drink or anything?" she asked.

"Wouldn't say no to some hot chocolate," Luke replied, and his mother smiled as she headed into the kitchen.

"I think I can rustle some up. Can't you sleep?"

Luke, following her, paused. "I keep having this dream."

Sarah Jane nearly dropped the kettle in alarm. "Dream? What dream?"

"About this planet."

"What planet?"

"I don't know what it's called," Luke said. "But I can describe it. It's quite desolate, a lot of it wasteland, but it's got marshes and mountains and there's a sort of ruined city. It has three suns and there are a couple of planets close by; visible in the sky even in the daytime."

Sarah Jane sat down opposite her son, looking thoughtful. "Let's run it past Mr Smith, see what he says."

"Why?"

"Well it could be nothing, but you don't dream very often and it's probably a good idea to put our minds at rest. Mine, anyway."

Two mugs of hot chocolate later and the two made their way up to the attic, where Luke repeated his description with as much detail as he could remember to the zylock.

There was a momentary silence before Mr Smith spoke. "What Luke has described is a planet in the Ox Gastarbi system. It is called Fradox."

"You mean it's a real place?"

"Yes. Luke has described it quite aptly. It is an uninhabited planet now, although there was a race who died out a few millennia ago."

"But, how can I dream about a place I've never seen?" Luke asked.

"I regret, I do not have the answers. How long have these dreams been occurring?"

Sarah Jane looked over at Luke. He could see she looked even more worried now. "Last few nights," he said.

"May I ask what the dreams are like?"

"Like?"

"I might be able to narrow down the cause of the dreams with more information. Did you for instance interact with anything in the dreams?"

"No," Luke said. "It was like viewing a slideshow, just seeing lots and lots of pictures."

It was hot, so hot. Sweat was running down Jenny's face and she struggled to keep breathing, her legs pounding scorched grass heavily.

A bright dazzle dazed her; making her unsteady, falling. Someone took her hand and stopped her from losing her balance.

Two words. "Come on."

Hunger was scraping her insides, her breath coming in thirsty pants. What she wouldn't give for some water ...

Jenny sat bolt upright, shaking, and nearly hit her head on the roof above her bunk. That dream again. She gave up on all thought of sleep, and made her way to the shuttle's water supply.

"Put it out your mind for now," Sarah Jane said, whisking Luke's breakfast plate out from under him. "Just go on your trip and have a good time. And you'd better hurry up, you don't want to miss the coach. I'll keep working with Mr Smith to see if we can figure this thing out."

"Okay, Mum." Luke grabbed his things in a hurry, gave her a quick hug and half-ran out the door. "See you in a week!"

"Have fun!" she called after him.

Luke tried to do as his mother said and put the dream out his mind. He was just hurrying down the drive when a blue glow surrounded him.

"Mum!" he just had time to yell, before he felt his atoms being pulled out of space, and everything went dark.

All the alarms were sounding. Jenny ran for the controls, and swore in a number of languages as she saw the reason for it: a very large meteoroid was heading straight for the shuttle.

She threw herself into the chair and yanked levers, pulling the ship off course, but not fast enough. Instead of colliding head on, the ship shuddered violently as the meteoroid scraped down one side. Jenny was thrown back out of her chair, and held on tight as the ship rolled over. Although it straightened out soon enough, even more alarms were going off and she scrambled back. There was a long tear in the body, one of the engines was wrecked and the oxygen tanks were damaged.

Jenny looked dazedly at the warnings. The ship would have lost all its air in five minutes. That was just great. That meant, with her respiratory bypass system, she had about ten minutes in which to find somewhere with a breathable atmosphere, and land. In the space equivalent of the Sahara. With the engine damage she had, it would take at least a week to even see any sort of sanctuary, let alone reach it.

Funnily enough, Jenny wasn't panicking yet. Must be the genes, she thought. Her father didn't seem much of a panicker. He saw a problem with impossible odds and he solved it. Of course, he had many more years of practise than she did, but that didn't mean she shouldn't try.

Okay, options, she thought. One, try and fix oxygen storage in the hope of being able to salvage some air. Or two, try and fix the old engine which might get me somewhere safe in time.

It had to be the second option. Jenny doubted she'd be able to fix the tanks before all the air leaked out, and she didn't want to waste valuable time trying. So she armed herself with tools and headed towards the engine.

Deep down, she knew she had no hope of surviving. After all, even at top speed she wasn't certain that she could find somewhere breathable in ten—no, nine—minutes. Still, she whistled cheerfully to keep her spirits up, satisfied that even if she failed, she was trying everything she could. She'd even sent out an SOS, though she didn't have much hope that would reach anyone—

Or maybe she was wrong. Jenny started as something blue shimmered around her; she felt a yanking sensation, and blacked out.

TBC …